The Loophole
by sora kazega
Summary: In one universe Jacob never doubted, in another he made a gamble. In one universe a women burned to death, in another a man saved a life at the cost of his own. They collided and one of them was tasked with the burden of twice as many memories.


**AN:** Well, this is a story that been hanging around in my noggin for quite a while. I don't think I'll actually continue it past this chapter, seeing as most of my fanfic ideas are silent, but who knows maybe it'll kickstart me into writing again. Anyhow, enjoy this sporadic Idea that I got two summers ago.

* * *

_Only the dead_

_"Zero is the number people often feel, more so than one." _

_- Anthony Liccione_

The fire crackled and sent shadows dancing across the walls of his abode as he worked on his tapestry. Suddenly he twitched and Jacob grimaced as he made a mistake.

Him making a mistake was a rare occurrence and he didn't like it in the least when he did. He could fix it easily as it was nothing more than an annoyance and really, he had all the time in the world. He always did. But this mistake also made him realize that his plan – his grand, masterful plan – which was about to come into motion soon was not foolproof. Not completely anyway.

The blonde sighed and stopped, turning around and looking into the fire. He had a backup plan – the constant - but there were so many variables that anything at all could go wrong, neutralizing it. An idea popped up in his head but he dismissed it as soon as he knew what it was; he already had so many numbers that adding one now was useless, not to mention a waste of time. It would only worsen the odds. What could he do that would allow him to stop his opponent from finding and exploiting a loop hole?

His eyes widened for a fraction of a second. A loophole!

Jacob knew the rules better than anyone, they were what he lived his life by. And the man thought furiously, for he could do many things as blessed as he was but he didn't dare actually break the rules. So idea after idea was discarded, the next more dubious, dangerous and insane than the former. His thoughts began to run in circles after a while and he started fixing his mistake in the tapestry, working with the strings always calmed him down.

He picked up a string at random, not really thinking about it and was about to weave it into his work when he noticed the color and texture; it was different, ever so slightly. He stared at it as if it were a gift from God, and to him it might as well have been. He knew for a fact that if he had added it, fixing his mistake, he wouldn't actually notice that it was different, not if one was looking at the whole picture. The idea that this gave him was ludicrous and he didn't even know if it was possible, but he supposed he had nothing to lose. Besides it been a long, long time since he had actually tried testing his limits. The smile that appeared on his face was the first true one that had been there in almost two millennia.

* * *

Two weeks later Jacob stood in front of the tapestry again looking at the mistake he had made. Today his plan went into motion. He knew instinctively that it was only on this day that he could even try to pull his gamble off. The islands was a place of miracles, he knew that best of all, but it had its limits. He was part of the island in a way and as such he shared those limits. But in theory he should be able to do it, it was this very gift what made it possible for the candidates to be candidates after all.

The electromagnetism that would saturate the air all too soon should allow him to pull it off. He felt the slightest tremors and started weaving the string that differed ever so slightly into his tapestry, fixing his mistake. He continued even when the whole Island started shaking and resisted the urge to cover his ears with grit teeth. He pushed his will, his gift, into the tapestry; pulling.

Finally the tremors stopped and he was glad of the deafening silence that now surrounded him. He looked at the part he'd fixed and finished, the sentence reading in Greek: "Only the dead have seen the end of war".

He couldn't even tell that he'd used the different string.

As he had predicted this was the limit of his gift; it could not reach that far, even with the electromagnetism making the fabric of time and space slightly unstable. The blonde man had reached and reached. Tried to touch and pull, even if he had no idea what he was even looking for. In the end the only thing he was sure his gift _had_ touched was that string and he doubted that his gift would do much for the inanimate thing.

He wasn't even disappointed since he had expected it to fail, the act had been more symbolic than anything really. It seemed Tawaret's gift, which he had been bestowed, was not applicable to weaving; it could only give and direct. He was no Neith after all, and so the man in white waited for things to finally go toward the ending.

* * *

Blue eyes snapped open and they were closed again immediately because the pain was too much; his head felt like it was about to explode, and his body hurt all over. He grabbed his head as things flashed before his eyes.

The screeching of tires, the widening of brown eyes. Nicole, he had to save Nicole! Another painful throb, and it was like somebody had switched to a different channel and he was the TV. The air whistling past, the whine of failing machinery and the wails of the doomed. Nicole, she had to save Nicole! Everything turned sideways and suddenly there were boys running around in a yard, playing childhood games that everyone knows.

A flash of blinding light.

He gasped for breath as it ended. What the fuck was going on?

He got up slowly, arms trembling, his eyes scrunched shut in pain and determination. A throb of pain, and it started again.

Girls giggling on a bed, surrounding a phone. It faded away to reveal a room full dancing, laughing, smiling people. He heard the thoughts of the brown-haired woman; she wanted some of that wine because it would certainly make the night more enjoyable. A drop of red wine spilled, and in that drop he saw a blackboard with lines he knew by heart on it. The drop exploded into white.

He faltered, stumbling and falling right back down and along the way down he hit something. "_Make it stop!"_ he begged, but nobody was listening. The darkness of his eyelids became a place he hadn't seen in the school yard he saw himself getting beaten up whilst they all laughed, but he'd get them one day. It was like a badly put together film being shown on his eyelids, as now there stood a girl who blushed as she read the note in her hand. It was the first time somebody had confessed to her, but it was far from the last.

Once again light succumbed all his senses.

Just like he had rolled with the punches all those years ago, now he stumbled on, the floor hard beneath his feet. He clearly heard the blood in his ears and he fell down as another migraine struck.

Caps were thrown in the air. A soccer ball getting kicked and the whole stadium going nuts. A hand that smote down, a mountain of books. Holding in her arms the most precious thing. A paper filled with colored lines. Tears made its way down his face as he felt hair fall in his neck. Had he been coherent he would have found this odd.

He stood back up, and stumbled on even as he saw Kangaroos and heard the laughter of the young in his ears. The texture beneath his feet became soft and hot as they stood in the kitchen, he smiled at her making breakfast. It twirled away to reveal green mush sailing through the air and landing with a plop on the floor. Next was a tooth beneath a pillow and he heard a giggle that he knew so well yet had never heard before. Suddenly he was looking at the stars, whilst a deep voice told him which constellation was which.

He still had his eyes scrunched shut because of the pain, but perhaps that was the reason he was seeing them to begin with. He took a step and opened his eyes. What he saw was somehow more disturbing than what he'd seen on his eyelids.

His mouth was open in shock and incomprehension as he took in what was before him. It was a beach, a honest to god beach with water lapsing and the sun shining high. The soft texture he'd walked on for the last few visions was sand, yet there was so much more on that beach. So much machinery, some suitcases and as his brain caught up with it all sound started to register to him as well. A high whir, a repeating scream as well as other voices.

He saw people running, though from what he didn't know, because this was simply too much to process, especially with that vicious head-ache of his. The whir reached a pitch.

**BOOM!**

He was blown away, the fires of hell on his back. He couldn't even scream, but in a way he was happy; oblivion would be his. No longer would those visions follow him. Or so he had thought because sadly that was not to be the case.

Instead of darkness, white light consumed his senses.

* * *

Jack Sheppard looked upon the two people that lay in the tent that he and Herley had built for the immensely injured. One was a man well-built man with brown hair and the reason he lay in the tent was because he was impaled by a piece of metal. The wound was infected, his abdomen rigid, his fever high and his groans of pain were constant when the he came to. The man was a Marshall, one who was apparently escorting Kate Austen back to the USA for whatever crime she'd committed. When the Marshall was awake and coherent enough, he warned him that she was dangerous.

He'd told Herley that it wasn't any of his business to know what she'd done. It hadn't been, but things had changed since then. The choking episode a few hours ago, when the rainfall had been at it heaviest, had made it his business. She had talked about putting the Marshall out of his misery, and he had not reacted kindly. He had not said it in so many words, or even directly, but he had forbidden her from entering the tent again. Now not only was he curious, but also worried; how dangerous was Kate exactly? He truly wondered what a petite women like she could do.

Speaking of petite, he slid his eyes over to his other patient. In his sight lay a woman of small stature who was mostly wrapped up in gauze. She'd had long black hair, but the lower half had burned along with parts of her back. He'd cut off the burnt hair and put some salve's on the burns of her back and upper neck.

Upon her long neck, now covered in gauze, rested her head. The face was comprised of a sharp nose, a less sharp jaw, a pair of dainty eyebrows and small lips. Besides the burns she had a bruised rib, which was why her torso was also covered in a stark white, and few small bruises. Her nose had bled as well, but that had stopped. All in all Jack thought she rather looked like a broken and burned the burns were second degree burns and uninfected no less. However, between her and the Marshall the medicine and especially the gauze, which had already been pretty low in stock to begin with, were declining fast.

Jack worried about her, because she hadn't awoken yet and it had already been two days. He wasn't the only one worried about how things were going in the tent though. The moans of the Marshall, which were thankfully absent for the moment, worried the rest of the survivors. They were of the opinion he couldn't save the man, and as he listened to the still labored breathing of the Marshall he thought, for a second, that maybe they were right.

He easily pushed that doubt away; the man would live. They would get rescued, he had to believe that. Hope, he'd realized a long ago in the halls of the hospitals, was a precious thing.

He however wasn't all that good at bringing about hope, he was a factual man. He would state what was wrong without many euphemisms. Basically his bed manner was horrible, as he had been told many a time. His face twisted into a grimace as he thought of his father criticizing that very thing. His father who was now not only dead, but his body was gone; dropped somewhere on this forsaken island or had fallen out at sea.

Never before had his father seemed further away than now, and he looked up at the darkening sky. He didn't believe in heaven, not really, but he imagined that his father was up there; comfy and happy, probably with an alcoholic beverage in hand.

A cough brought him out of his thoughts and he looked at the Marshall, he'd woken up. Right away Jack got to work, making the man as healthy and comfortable as the man could be with an infected wound. The Marshall wanted to talk to her, and kept talking about that she'd do anything to get away. Jack asked what the hell she'd done, the man replied that he wanted to talk to her.

Alone.

Jack stared incredulously at the man; the last time the two had been alone in the tent both had almost died.

"So she got to you too, huh." What the hell his patient meant by that, he did not know.

The Marshall was unrelenting, and seeing as the man had perhaps four days of life left before his body fully shut down, he could not refuse. This was a last wish he supposed, to cut loose ends. Jack went to get Kate. She was sitting by the fire, not far from the tent.

" He wants to talk to you, alone." he told her.

She turned around and looked him with green eyes. Her eyes were asking for permission, asking why the hell he would allow here close to his patient when he had accused her of being a murderer. He nodded, he wasn't too happy, but if the last time things had gone wrong was any indication, he should be more worried about the man doing harm to her than the other way around. She stood up and moved towards the tent, he towards the sea. He looked at the dark expanse that blended so well with the night sky, looking for a light that was not made by nature but by man. No such luck.

Herley came and stood next to him. "So where's the Fugitive?" the big man asked him.

" In the tent," he replied with a nod of his head.

" You let her in their alone?"

"What's she going to do? She's a 120 pounds and soaking wet."

"Yeah but she's got that gun."

He stared at Hurley with big eyes. The man wasn't lying.

Jack ran towards the tent and saw Kate leave it, he called out to her. He was glad, no shots had been fired.

A loud bang reverberated through the air. It looked like he had spoken too soon.

* * *

His mind was chaos; it was a cacophony of sounds, smells and views. The flashes were constant now, they never stopped. They passed too fast to keep thinking about, to truly comprehend. All he was left with were fragments of emotions that didn't blend all that well together. Any knowledge of who he –she- he was were gone.

After a little while she started to realize that they were memories. The scary part was that they weren't all his. At least that's what he knew at the beginning, but as onslaught of the melding memories continued the distinction between the two started to slip. He no longer knew which one was his, or which one wasn't.

As they went on in their unchronological order they started to all became his. Hers? Theirs?

Was he Adam Davis or Lucy Hall, Adam Hall or Lucy Davis? Both or Neither?

Once again he heard the screeching of tires, the wails of the doomed and saw two pairs of eyes, both scared and shocked. "Nicole!", it was the first clear thought she'd had and with it came another flash of light that covered her eyelids. It was the last one, and she sighed in relief as nothing but darkness filled her vision.

Relative silence was there as well, like that calming track of beach sounds and birdsong that he'd listened to as a teenager, and it made him happy. The tranquility of his newfound silence was broken by a loud bang, and with a snap he opened his eyes. Blue tarp was what filled his vision, but he didn't give care about the tarp. He turned to the left, where the sound had come from and what he saw made his heart skip a beat.

A tall, blonde man was holding a gun, pointed at a brown-haired man lying on a self-made bed. Without so much as any acknowledgement that he had just shot a man – a sick and wounded man at that- the shooter left the makeshift tent. There was an argument, but he tuned it out because all he saw was the blood pooling out of the wound. She watched as it made a trail down the man's chest, mesmerized by the red liquid.

Now he wished for it to be a memory, for it to flash to the next one, but it didn't. The silence that before had been so tranquil was now heavy, and suddenly it was broken again. A wet choking cough, it was horrible sound.

"Fuck," Adam whispered, his voice sounded odd but he ignored that because the man was still alive. The man was fucking alive. The argument outside had gone silent as well as the choke sounded again. He had to move, the killer was going to enter the dark tent again at any moment, but just as he was about to move another man entered the tent. Luckily he too only had eyes for the victim.

"You shot him in the chest?!" came the new man's voice.

The killer had entered the tent now as well, he looked shocked and guilty. "Yeah, I was aiming for his heart."

"Well, you missed." the man on the ground put another tissue on the wound, "You perforated his lung. It'll take hours to bleed out!"

The other man looked just as sick at that thought as I did. "There was – only had one bullet." As if that was justification, as if that was an explanation for why.

It did tell Adam something though, there were no more bullets to be fired.

He could run away.

He tried to get up, but his body ached and protested profusely and as he fell back down on his own makeshift bed he screamed. His back was on fire, it hurt everywhere. It looked like that the fires of hell that had chased him on that beach had been real, and not just another flash after all.

What freaked him the fuck out though wasn't that he had been burned by fire on a beach – this freaked him out too - but not as much as his scream, because it wasn't his voice. It was a high-pitched feminine scream.

A feminine voice he knew all too well; the voice of Lucy Hall.

What the fuck was going on?


End file.
